Konstanze Plett
University of Bremen, Germany

"Essentialization of Gender by Law: Treatment of Intersexuality in Germany"

Monday, 6 October 2003
12:05 - 1:30 p.m.
8417 Social Sciences

Sponsors: The Center for German and European Studies Link to CGES website,
the Science and Technology Studies Program (S&TS), and the training group in gender (femsem) in the Department of Sociology.

This talk is part of the brownbag series on the sociology of gender associated with Sociology 984 (Seminar in the Sociology of Gender)

Konstanze Plett is a senior lecturer at the University of Bremen, Germany. She is affiliated with both its Law Department and Center for Feminist Studies, and presently serves as director of the Center. She received her Dr.iur. from the University of Hamburg, Germany (1983), and LL.M. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School (1988). Her research interests center on gender and law in general, and on gender biases in the law in particular, after many years’ work on dispute processing. These are illustrated by her publications Beyond Disputing: Exploring Legal Culture in Five European Countries (editorship and introduction, with Catherine S. Meschievitz), Baden- Baden: Nomos, 1991; and "Gender and the Law", in: International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, Oxford: Pergamon, 2001. She is also an active member of socio-legal associations, including the Law and Society Association.

The lecture deals with the effect of the law on the construction of gender. The law draws a distinct line between "female" and "male" right after birth: every human being (at least in the West) belongs to either sex whether or not the body fits the image, whether or not the developing sexual identity fits the body and/or the legal sex ascription. This essentializing effect of the law on gender will be illustrated by an account of how the German laws treat intersexuals (hermaphrodites), and the discussion of a pending court case where the applicant challenges the law proscribing the attribution of either male or female to every human being, with nothing in between and nothing beyond.